I saw an interview Terence Stamp gave promoting “Unfinished Song’’ in which he quipped that he and Vanessa Redgrave, who plays his dying spouse in “Unfinished Song,” had a combined total of 101 years’ experience acting in front of movie cameras.
By my count, it’s actually 106, and it’s the sheer artistry and professionalism of these two treasures that transforms Paul Andrew Williams’ otherwise undistinguished addition to the ever-lengthening catalog of British-senior comic tear-jerkers (including “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’’ and “Quartet’’) into something worth seeing.
Stamp, still formidably playing upper-crust villains into his 70s, is winningly cast against type as Arthur, a curmudgeonly middle-class pensioner who wants nothing to do with anyone except for his sweet longtime wife, Marion (Vanessa Redgrave).
Marion’s disabilities have reached the point where Arthur’s forced to accompany her to rehearsals of her beloved senior-citizens choir, where a dedicated young teacher (erstwhile Bond Girl Gemma Arterton) is teaching them rock standards (à la the 2007 American documentary “Young@Heart’’).
At first, grumpy Arthur stands outside the community center where rehearsals take place grabbing a smoke, but as Marion continues to decline he finds himself more and more an unwilling participant in their activities.
Redgrave, who delivers the most moving rendition of “True Colors’’ imaginable, is in about half the movie — her and Stamp’s final scenes together could wring tears from a stone, and it isn’t hard to guess where Arthur is headed after that.
Stamp could not be better as a man set emotionally adrift when he loses the love of his life. Angry and confused, he rejects overtures not only from the teacher but from his own son (Christopher Eccleston), a mechanic and single dad who has always had a chilly relationship with the old man.
Williams’ script surrounds the stars with elderly actors who are used strictly as comic props — dancing the robot or improbably singing Salt-n-Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex.’’
Stamp finds more honest (and less condescending) humor in his grumpy character, who is forced to take center stage and mount a rebellion when the choir’s participation in a competition is threatened by a totally contrived obstacle.
Given the spoiler-ific title, it’s not exactly giving away anything to reveal that Stamp also sings three numbers in “Unfinished Song’’ — the last one so stirring that you should bring at least one box of Kleenex.
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